Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen of the committee.
My name is Karen Proud. I'm the President of Consumer Health Products Canada. I'm joined at the table by my colleague Adam Gibson, our newly minted Vice-President of Public Affairs, who has been with the association for about a month.
In our previous lives, however, Adam and I have both worked as regulators at Health Canada. I left Health Canada over 10 years ago, but Adam's departure from the public service was much more recent. In his last job with Health Canada, he was the director general of the natural and non-prescription health products directorate. Between the two of us, we have about 25 years of experience in regulating the very sector we now represent.
I will give you just a little bit about Consumer Health Products Canada.
We are the trade association that represents the companies that make evidence-based natural health products and over-the-counter medicines. These are things from sunscreens to vitamins to allergy medicines. They are what Canadians have in their medicine cabinets to treat their minor ailments every day. Within our membership, we have a wide range of members, from the very biggest manufacturers to small companies trying to make a go of their business in Canada. In fact, some of my colleagues who are here today are members of CHP Canada.
I'm really pleased to be here today to share our experiences and thoughts regarding this important study. I thank the committee for the opportunity to present.
I'd also like to offer our support to the witnesses you heard on Tuesday from both the Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. You heard a lot about red tape and administrative burden from those witnesses. We are fully aligned with what they presented to you on Tuesday. We would therefore like to offer input in some additional areas of the regulatory system. We won't touch on those areas that were already very well represented by those witnesses.
At CHP Canada, we are advocates for the necessary benefits of regulations. Our industry has long recognized the positive role that regulations play to ensure market fairness, consumer safety and investor confidence.
We have been around for well over 100 years and have witnessed the additive impact of new regulations over time and the resulting challenges faced by our members, particularly the small businesses. We've faced these challenges in the past by remaining engaged with government.
For example, we applaud the recent rounds of regulatory modernization that have been undertaken by the Treasury Board Secretariat. The renewed cabinet directive and the supporting suite of policy tools published last September represent a real step forward and, when applied by departments, will have a significant impact on businesses both large and small.
My experience over the years has been that the Treasury Board has not frequently consulted with stakeholders outside of government on these types of policies, and they really should be congratulated for the work they've done and the consultations they've had that have helped to contribute to the development of these new policies.
That said, we have not seen a consistent application of these sorts of policies in the past. Staying engaged with government has also become increasingly difficult, especially for small businesses. I hope to provide some insights from the point of view of our sector as to how we may improve the situation, so I've broken up the presentation into a few theme areas that we would like to raise for your consideration.
One relates to regulatory competency and capacity. One of the greatest challenges we have seen over the years relates to achieving a shared understanding between industry and the regulator of how the industry actually functions. Essentially, a well-informed regulator is one who will propose and ratify the most effective laws. However, the value of understanding industry is influenced by public service attitudes, management changes and perceived and real conflicts of interests, as well as resources.
At CHP Canada, we have taken it upon ourselves to offer education to our Health Canada regulators about how our industry works. We have an ongoing program whereby we provide access to our member experts at least twice a year to explain how our business functions. While our education efforts have been very well supported by the Health Canada officials, the challenge is that this form of industry comprehension is voluntary and is not a prerequisite to becoming a lawmaker. A lack of comprehension of small business factors only compounds these concerns.
The policies I mentioned earlier from the Treasury Board would help address issues through improved consultation; however, we have not seen their consistent application over the years. As a result, we believe more rigorous application of Treasury Board policies, as well as sector education within regulatory bodies, are partial solutions that are already before us.
I also want to speak briefly about the volume of regulations and the planning for input into regulations. There's always a challenge for both associations and government to effectively engage small businesses. They're busy. Because they have fewer staff performing multiple roles, they may often find themselves learning about issues as they face them, as opposed to being part of the consultative process in shaping those regulations.
The environment inherently puts small business at a disadvantage during regulatory consultations that may impact their operations. They're always at risk of not being represented and, therefore, appearing complacent or in agreement with regulatory proposals when their voices are not heard.
For example, in order to stay engaged over the last four months, small businesses in our sector would have had to have participated in 24 different regulatory-related consultations coming out of Health Canada alone. Almost half of those were only shared with industry associations, with some requiring as few as 10 days to respond. Many small businesses are not even members of industry associations and don't benefit from the input that we provide, and their voices are not heard.
While not all of these consultations that I mentioned introduce new burdens, the sheer volume, timelines and communication practices mean that in many cases there is neither the ability nor the time to engage small businesses.
I don't want to suggest that the government stop consulting with industry, or that the pace of the necessary changes be slowed. We support the vast majority of what our regulators are working on and really greatly appreciate the opportunities and the efforts to engage with us. We'd simply encourage government to tailor their engagement activity to small businesses.
I know I've run a little bit over time. I'll just touch very quickly on one last point that was raised by the witnesses on Tuesday with regard to the lack of an economic mandate. We would just like to confirm and support the commitment in the fall economic statement requiring regulators to look at things like economic competitiveness. We're very happy to see that the government was looking to explore legislation that would include regulatory efficiency and economic growth as an integral part of regulators' mandates.
In conclusion, I'd like to thank the committee again for the opportunity to appear. We believe Canada has a great opportunity to lead the world in our regulatory approaches for small business, and see this study as an important part of that effort. I'll be happy to talk in more detail about the efforts that we are undertaking, including some research that we're currently involved in to look at the economic impact and competitiveness of our sector in Canada.